


Scrap Papers

by ApprenticedMagician



Category: The Great Library Series - Rachel Caine
Genre: Birthday, Gen, Gift Giving, bros being dicks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-10-31 11:26:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17848556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ApprenticedMagician/pseuds/ApprenticedMagician
Summary: It's their birthday. Brenden does a stupid thing and then Jess does a stupider thing.





	Scrap Papers

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the February Ficlet Challenge on tumblr. Day 2's theme was "blank book" and it fit too perfectly with these tragic twins. Plus, there isn't nearly enough content in this fandom. And to charmandheaven, yes, the idea is that Brenden actually crafted this book by hand.

It was stupid. Stupid to throw away something so valuable for no gain at all. The worst of trades, the shoddiest of business deals. But that didn’t mean Brenden could take back the poorly wrapped birthday present he had just chucked to the floor beside his twin, Jess, who was, as usual, hiding in some damp, forsaken crook of London, reading their family’s illicit goods on the floor like they were a matched set of Dumb and Dumber.

_Well_ , Brenden thought, _I can live with that as long as Jess is Dumber_.

“What’s that?” Jess asked, instantly proving the correct alignment. He hadn’t moved off his stomach to pick it up but he _had_ looked away from his book to stare at the present as though he expected it to rise up and bite his nose. Brenden would count his wins where he could.

“You’d think that’s what ‘unwrapping’ is for,” Brenden drawled, leaning back in his slickest of charming poses. It was sure to make Jess even more uneasy.

Sure enough, Jess recoiled a little from the package. “Very funny, Scraps.”

Immediately, Brenden felt himself react, coiling and snarling like one of those unheavenly lions who guarded the city’s Serapeum. “Don’t call me that,” he snapped, deliberately spitting on his own present in his fury.

Jess rose an eyebrow, pressing on the one point he had against Brenden, exploiting his best advantage and he reached for the package. “One perk about being the older one: I don’t have to listen to you. Scraps.”

If Brenden didn’t love his brother he would have gutted him right then and there. It wouldn’t even be hard, Jess was skin and bones as it was – his ribcage would probably be grateful for the knife he could bury in it.

But then Jess was pulling aside the layers of cloth and unveiling the last thing he would ever have guessed his brother would toss him.

It was a sheaf of blank papers – some whiter or more yellow than others – bound together with thread and set with sewn scrap pieces of leather to offer some protection from the elements. Handmade, by the looks of the workmanship, and not something one could find just anywhere – paper, all by itself, was an exceedingly scarce resource and here lay at least fifty sheets of it in Jess’s hands.

A book. A blank book. His brother had given him the opportunity to live a dream he hadn’t even realized he had – to write his own thoughts in ink and paper as the great minds of the past had done, to share in the commemoration of his own history, and prove to every future generation to come that _Jess Brightwell was here_.

“Brenden…” he sighed, awed and amazed and completely unprepared.

The younger twin blew hair out of his face, still angry, and spat, “Happy birthday to us. Not that you care.”

And before Jess could steal the last word from him, Brenden turned on his heel and strode from the attic, stuffing his pricked and bandaged hands into worn and ragged pockets.


End file.
